Manaaki Whenua and its predecessor the DSIR have provided government ministries and research stations of Pacific Island countries (Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands, and Niue) with climate-resilient agriculture and sustainable land-use support for over 50 years.
We are proud to have been awarded a new contract by MFAT in April 2025 for a regional Pacific partnership with Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, and Niue. We will support Pacific-based peer-to-peer networks across countries with links to regional and international science organisations and networks. Under the partnership, we will work alongside PICs’ Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, as well as agricultural research organisations to strengthen their capacity for climate resilient:
- land-use science, data analysis, and decision-making tools: building PICs data collection and analytical capacity to enable more accurate and effective climate resilient soils, seeds, and land-use-management assessments, and decision-making;
- on-farm trials for soils, crops, and indigenous plants: undertaking harvest, cultivation, and on-farm research to trial more climate resilient soils, crops, and culturally and commercially significant indigenous plants;
- provincial seed storage and distribution: developing provincial seed centres to improve seed storage and distribution capacity to farmers across Vanuatu – to support food security after cyclones and other climate-change induced disasters; and
- agriculture and land-use lab infrastructure and associated processes: filling infrastructure, systems, and skills gaps for labs that determine climate-resilient seeds/soils/crop/plant traits and protect against climate-induced pests and diseases.
